NEW YORK CITY: Cuomo Pitches Congestion Charges For Manhattan In Bid To Fund Crumbling Subway

A decade ago, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg of New York offered a plan to ease traffic in Manhattan and raise hundreds of millions of dollars to improve the city’s aging infrastructure. Drivers would be charged $8 to enter the most congested parts of Manhattan during peak commuting hours. The plan was crushed in Albany, derailed before it was even brought for a vote.

Now, with the city’s subways in crisis — with daily delays increasingly common and its equipment in dire condition — Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, who once doubted that congestion pricing would gain any traction in the state, is planning to resurrect the idea and will expend political capital to see it succeed.

With voters increasingly blaming him for the transit mess, Mr. Cuomo is working behind the scenes to draft a proposal and is using Mr. Bloomberg’s failed campaign as a lesson to improve its chances of winning the support of stakeholders, including the State Legislature.

A grassroots group has proposed charging tolls each way on all the East River bridges, which are currently free in each direction. London instituted congestion pricing in 2003.